Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (DCE-MRI) of tissue, such as breast or prostate tissue, is a valuable tool for the detection and diagnosis of health issues including cancer. For example, the kinetics of contrast medium uptake and washout yield important markers for malignancy. Typically, malignant tumors exhibit fast uptake of contrast medium followed by washout in a later phase. Standard clinical contrast enhanced scans are generally performed with high-spatial resolution to enable morphological evaluation of lesions and detection of small cancers. The high-spatial resolution required, combined with the sometimes large fields-of-view necessary to acquire images, leads to low temporal resolution, typically in the range of 60 to 75 seconds (s). As a result, important kinetic information is obscured.
Acquiring DCE-MRI with high-temporal resolution is important as it allows accurate classification of contrast medium dynamics in suspicious lesions, and thus, has the potential to aid discrimination between malignant and benign lesions. In addition, high-temporal resolution allows accurate measurement of the arterial input function (AIF) for each patient, a critical step in quantitative pharmacokinetic analysis.